“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”

—  Oscar Wilde

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?" by Oscar Wilde?
Oscar Wilde photo
Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900

Related quotes

Coventry Patmore photo

“I drew my bride, beneath the moon,
Across my threshold; happy hour!
But, ah, the walk that afternoon
We saw the water-flags in flower!”

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet

Book I, Canto VIII, III The Spirit's Epochs.
The Angel In The House (1854)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“But o'er CYRENE'S cheek the rose,
Like moon-touch'd water, ebbs and flows;
And eyes that droop like Summer flowers
Told they could change with shine and showers.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Lost Pleiad
Source: The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Maira Kalman photo
Albert Schweitzer photo

“In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Chrétien de Troyes photo

“Love without fear and trepidation is fire without flame and heat, day without sun, comb without honey, summer without flowers, winter without frost, sky without moon, a book without letters.”

Amors sanz crieme et sans peor
Est feus sanz flame et sanz chalor,
Jorz sanz soloil, bresche sanz miel,
Estez sans flor, iverz sanz giel,
Ciaus sanz lune, livres sanz letre.
Cligès, line 3893.

Bashō Matsuo photo

“There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

見るところ花にあらずと云ふことなし、
思ふところ月にあらずと云ふことなし。
Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi,
omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi
Classical Japanese Database, Translation #172 http://carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/translation/view/172 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth)
Statements
Variant: There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

William Blake photo

“The moon like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.”

Night, st. 1
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)

“Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”

"Cliffrose and Bayonets", p. 26
Desert Solitaire (1968)

Thomas Moore photo

“Fly not yet; 't is just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night
And maids who love the moon.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Fly not yet.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Ernst Jünger photo

Related topics